England local community pharmacists opinions on independent prescribing training

Abstract

The National Health Service has recognized an increasing need for pharmacists to upskill as an advanced clinical practitioners to practice as part of the wider multi-disciplinary team in primary care but outside of the community pharmacy. This explored community pharmacists’ opinions on independent prescribing training that can equip them to meet the workforce needs. Two activities have undertaken an audit of the independent prescribing pharmacists’ current employability in Wolverhampton and community pharmacists opinion online survey. Only 21 out of 57 surgeries (37%) in Wolverhampton employed an IP. With only 7 out of 57 (12%) surgeries employing an IP on an FTE basis, the remaining employed IP mainly part-time. There were 70 IPs employed a total of 50.2 FTE. The most selected areas as highly confident were public health knowledge 19.6%, followed by pharmacology and routine biochemistry equally at 17.65%. There were 23.5% who reported not being confident in interpreting highly specialized diagnostics, followed by anatomy at 18%. The most selected as the first option of course of future studies was 1-2 days continuous professional development (42.55%), where Masters, professional doctorate and doctor od philosophy were selected as least favorable options (53%, 63%, 72% respectively) indicating that the majority prefer a maximum of 6 month PT studies. This study confirmed the need for rethinking the current postgraduate pharmacy independent prescribing education, the pharmacists’ independent prescribers’ integration into primary care, and the need to redistribute resources and responsibilities.